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The Florida Competitive Workforce Act, which would prohibit discrimination against LGBTs in the workplace, is postponed to the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee’s Feb. 9 meeting after initially failing on a tie vote.

It was the first time the bill, which has been filed and refiled every Legislative session since 2007, made it before a committee.

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Vatican City (AP) – Pope Francis lays out his case for emphasizing the merciful face of the Catholic Church in his first book as pontiff, saying God never tires of forgiving and actually prefers the sinners who repent over self-righteous moralizers who don’t.

“The Name of God Is Mercy,” a 100-page conversation with Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, is being published this week in 86 countries to help kick-start Francis’ Holy Year of Mercy. A copy was provided in advance to The Associated Press.

Beautiful, savage, and relentless; those are the words that come to mind watching The Revenant, the newest film by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman, Babel). The acting is brilliant. The landscape photography is gorgeous. The film makes its point long, long, long before it’s willing to move on.

It’s like its protagonist – driven, focused, and overwhelmingly cruel. Whether The Revenant succeeds depends on how committed you are to a dogged, ferocious film at 2 hours and 40 minutes, as horrifying, bloody, cruddy things keep piling up.

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Reno, Nev. (AP) – A Reno juvenile detention center cut ties with a longtime chaplain over his views on homosexuality, highlighting an issue that some state-run correctional facilities face.

The facility is looking for someone with more tolerant views to lead Sunday services and Bible classes, detention center division director Steven Calabrese said. Calabrese told the Reno Gazette-Journal the decision was made in light of recent sermons made by Marvin Neal.

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Chicago (AP) – School officials in a suburban Chicago district may back out of a newly minted deal with the U.S. Department of Education allowing a transgender student to use a girls’ locker room, over a dispute about a hypothetical: What would happen if the girl decided against using the privacy curtains she’s agreed to use?

Less than two days after school board members approved the settlement, Township High School District 211 Superintendent Daniel Cates issued a statement Dec. 4 angrily condemning a top federal official for how she portrayed his description of it.

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KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Gay activists are hoping Pope Francis will preach tolerance toward homosexuals, and even go so far as to condemn violent attacks against gays during his upcoming visit to Uganda. Church leaders, however, are praying he’ll avoid the issue altogether.

The divergent expectations underscore the acrimonious state of the gay rights debate on a continent where homosexuality remains taboo and homosexuals are greatly despised. In Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal and where attacks against gays have forced many to seek refuge abroad or lead secret lives at home, gay leaders nevertheless hope Francis when he comes on Friday will weigh in with a firm message of tolerance.

This is a good film. It should’ve been amazing, illuminating and transformative.

There must be more to gender dysmorphia than what Eddie Redmayne shows for much of The Danish Girl. Is it simply the desire to touch silky fabrics and pose like girls in 1920s cigarette ads?

There also is more to Lili Elbe, the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery. The Danish Girl is slow, lacking emotional punch. It’s also all small moments of understated drama cut short by painterly views of Denmark, Dresden, and Paris.

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Several hundred people with roots in the Mormon faith gathered in Salt Lake City to renounce the church’s new policies targeting gays and their children in an event that marked the latest illustration of the fervor the rule changes have caused.

Billed as a mass resignation by Mormons, people filled out paperwork and dropped off the resignation letters at a church building Nov. 14. The large majority had stopped attending church years ago. But they said the new policy that bans baptisms for children of gay parents until the kids turn 18 and disavow same-sex relationships spurred them to come and formally cut ties and have their names removed from the faith’s membership rolls.

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If there’s anything that we love about the public drawing and quartering of the Republican Party presidential bench during this frightful election cycle, it’s that there are tiers of candidates, that there is, indeed, a Varsity and a Junior Varsity contingent, and the lower down you get on the success scale, it doesn’t get any more absurd – it just stays absurd. Juniors are as good as seniors, a Santorum is as good as a blowjob and Lindsey Graham is still happening. Beyond the greenroom issues which made us fall out of our hot tub and into our home theater today, the real issue is whether any of the four folks being cut off constantly on CNBC in the not-ready-for-prime-time-let-me-try-to-get-a-word-in-edgewise. ”

We already have too many government mandates,” tiny man Bobby Jindal says. “FLAT TAX!” Oh, shut up. So, for now, we have Graham, George Pataki, Jindal and Santorum. Someone smells an orgy. No one smells a president. We’ll liveblog the serious ones (cough), later. For now, we’ll just waste our time and gawk.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The company that sparked an angry backlash after it raised the price of a drug used by AIDS patients for treating a deadly parasitic infection by more than 5,000 percent says it will roll back some of the increase.

Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli told ABC News Sept. 22 that the new price would make Daraprim more accessible, although he did not say what the new price for the drug would be. A spokesman for Turing did not immediately respond to a request for details.

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Watermark is a multi-faceted media company using opportunities and innovations to communicate and advance LGBT interests, with a corporate emphasis on professionalism while building strong relationships with our readers, customers and community.

Watermark Media was founded by Tom Dyer in Orlando in 1994, and expanded to Tampa Bay in 1995. Dyer is an attorney, former board member of the Metropolitan Business Association and Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and current advisory board member of the Harvey Milk Foundation.

Watermark prints up to 20,000 copies every other Thursday, and distributes them in more than 500 locations throughout Orlando, Tampa Bay, Sarasota and throughout the state. The newspaper donates more than $200,000 annually in free and sponsor advertising to worthy local and national LGBT non-profits.

Watermarkonline.com was launched in 1999. The award-winning newspaper currently maintains offices in Tampa Bay and Orlando and employs a full-time staff of 12, along with several part-time and freelance contributors.

Watermark Publishing Group, founded by publisher Rick Claggett, purchased Watermark in January of 2016. Rick Claggett is a long-time employee of Watermark Media and former board member of both the Metropolitan Business Association and Come Out With Pride.Read More...